8.Climb,ascend,mount,scale imply a moving upward. To climb is to make one's way upward, often with effort: to climb a mountain.Ascend, in its literal meaning (“to go up”), is general, but it now usually suggests a gradual or stately movement, with or without effort, often to a considerable degree of altitude: to ascend the heights; to ascend the Himalayas.Mount may be interchangeable with ascend, but also suggests climbing on top of or astride of: to mount a platform, a horse.Scale, a more literary word, implies difficult or hazardous climbing up or over something: to scale a summit.

Old English climban "raise oneself using hands and feet; rise gradually, ascend; make an ascent of" (past tense clamb, past participle clumben, clumbe), from West Germanic *klimbanan "go up by clinging" (cf. Dutch klimmen "to climb," Old High German klimban, German klimmen). A strong verb in Old English, weak by 16c. Most other Germanic languages long ago dropped the -b. Meaning "to mount as if by climbing" is from mid-14c. Figurative sense of "rise slowly by effort" is from mid-13c. Related: Climbed; climbing.

n.

1580s, "act of climbing," from climb (v.). Meaning "an ascent by climbing" is from 1915, originally in aviation.